Call Me Rick
by cowlicklesschick
Summary: So, he decides, she likes learning simply for the sake of learning itself. It doesn't even have to be useful information – it's not like they're going to revamp the practice of mummification. Evelyn just likes knowing things, whether from a book or by getting three-thousand-year-old dust under her fingernails.


_**See what happens when I hit writer's block is I watch movies to get the juices flowing again and then I have ideas for fanfic about the movies I just watched and then I have write those before I can get back to work on the projects I got distracted from in the first place. *throws papers***_

 _ **Also it's really hard to do a non-dialogue drabble for a character who spends most of the film screaming at mummies but whatever**_

/

He's not sure when, exactly, he realized she was lot more than a girl looking for gold.

He admires her spunk when he watches her trip over and then ignore her moaning brother, to get closer to the prison bars and ask about the road to Hamunaptra.

He's in awe of her quick thinking when she literally saves his head from getting blown off, and when her first complaint after climbing out of the cold river is the loss of her tools, not her wardrobe.

But at some point, between riding camels through the desert, turned gold by the sun during the day and silver by the moon at night, he starts noticing how little importance she seems to place on the gold her brother hopes to find.

That's when he finds himself confused, and it irritates him. He prefers being able to read people, the better to predict when they'll double-cross him (Beni was hardly the first).

If she's not in this for the money, then why is she here? Why is she suffering the trials of the only woman among a total of thirty men, without any of the comforts she's undoubtedly used to, if her goal is not riches?

He remembers what she told him, on that quiet little corner of the deck. But he finds it enormously hard to believe that even someone as studious as Evelyn Carnahan would risk life and dismemberment for a _book_.

Once again, though, he's proven wrong.

Every little discovery they make, every new corner of dust and ruins and ancient carvings on the walls – those make her light up more than any mention of gold or jewels. She spouts off facts the way her brother does wine vintages.

So, he decides, she likes learning simply for the sake of learning itself. It doesn't even have to be useful information – it's not like they're going to revamp the practice of mummification. Evelyn just likes _knowing_ things, whether from a book or by getting three-thousand-year-old dust under her fingernails.

It's a nice change, he'll admit. But then she starts sharing the bottle of gin with her brother, and a few more reasons for her determination spill forth, pictures in her locket and a love for the pyramids and exploring that runs in her veins.

He sees her smile, catches the scent of the gin mixing with that of her sweat and the flowery perfume the tribal women used in her hair, and he suddenly realizes that just as knowledge is her favorite part of this journey, his favorite part has become watching her chase down all that history, soak up the centuries-old clues and stories. It's been a long time since he's seen someone's eyes light up like that.

 _I am a librarian_ she declares, emphatically and with that broad smile. He sits there, a bit stunned at how a statement like that is making it hard for him to breathe.

 _Call me Rick_ is past his lips before he can even try to stop it. He doesn't care. There are so few things she doesn't know; he doesn't want to be one of them, a _Mr. O'Connell_ who merely escorted her across the desert and back.

If he thought her smile before was breathtaking, the one that spreads across her face now is a supernova. Distantly he tells himself that he never told her his first name, and this is merely Evelyn enjoying knowledge for no reason other than having it. But then she swallows, her gaze becoming more serious, and she breathes out his Christian name, only now it sounds like a sinner's whispered confession.

Despite everything that happens the next day, though, he can't get angry with her. At least, not until she keeps unpacking whatever he shoves into her trunk, following him in circles around her room and protesting that they have to do something.

 _I am trying to do something_ , he wants to shout at her. _I'm trying to keep you safe_.

She's as stubborn as she is smart though, something he both admires and hates in equal measure when he watches her take the regenerated hand that probably used to belong to one of the Americans or something.

He's forced to watch her walk away, and it's not until after he's dragged her and Jonathan both out of the crumbling city that he gets a chance to really look at her. There's sand and cobwebs in her hair, her black nightgown is torn a little at the hem, but her eyes are shining as bright as ever, the sun catching on her smile.

Her smile when he kisses her, presses his forehead against hers, is the same as when she cracks hieroglyphic code or an ancient spell. There's a quiet eruption of joy deep in his chest as he realizes that it's because she knows him now, but intends to keep learning and expand that knowledge. With any luck, it'll take the rest of their lives for her to accomplish it.

No, he thinks as he pulls her closer, feels her wrap an arm around him and press closer on the camel's saddle, he _definitely_ wouldn't say he's walking away empty-handed.


End file.
